Photo courtesy of Charlita LloydCollege student Terrell Barnes pays a visit to Earl Lloyd, who in 1950 broke the color line in the National Basketball Association.

Terrell Barnes didn’t need to give the choice much thought. He plays basketball at Tennessee Tech, where an instructor in a summer English course asked him to write a paper about someone who influenced his life. Barnes went back to his room and made a call to Earl Lloyd, 82, a National Basketball Association legend who, in 1955, played a key role on the only NBA team to win a championship in Syracuse.

A few months earlier, Lloyd had visited Tech to share some thoughts with the players. The message stayed with Barnes. The young man figured, if he got lucky, that Lloyd might give him another 10 minutes on the phone. What he did not expect from the basketball Hall of Famer was this suggestion:

"Why don’t you get in the car," Lloyd asked, "and come here and spend some time?"

Barnes made the two-hour drive from his school to Fairfield Glade in Tennessee, where Lloyd and his wife Charlita live in retirement. The subsequent paper that Barnes wrote earned an "A" in class, but he sees his grade as the least important result.

Sixty years ago this Halloween, Lloyd became the first African-American to set foot in an NBA game. He was playing for the soon-to-be-defunct Washington Capitols, who visited Rochester to take on the old Royals. Washington lost, 78-70, before about 2,200 fans. Lloyd had six points and 10 rebounds, although it is doubtful that anyone in the arena could fully appreciate what Lloyd would come to represent.

Today, 80 percent of the players in the NBA are black. Basketball is the undisputed national pastime within black America, where the game veers between sport and performance art. There are many explanations for how that came to be, but a symbolic turning point certainly occurred in 1950, when Lloyd and three other black Americans shattered the NBA color line.

Lloyd, who spent most of his playing career with the old Syracuse Nationals, is in Washington this week for some events commemorating the 60th anniversary, including a meeting today with Vice President Joe Biden. Lloyd and his wife Charlita will then travel to Tennessee Tech for a celebration on Sunday, a gathering put together by Tech basketball coach Mike Sutton.

"We’re doing this because of what Earl Lloyd did, and how he handled himself," Sutton said. "Don’t get me wrong, we’ve got plenty of issues in this country. But if you look at where we were 60 years ago right now — and that’s not much on the timeline of civilization — this is a guy, in the whole way he carries himself, who reminds us of hope and potential."

During the visit to Fairfield Glade, Barnes came to an identical impression.

"He’s a great guy," he said of Lloyd, "and he really taught me a lot in those two hours."

Barnes, 20, grew up in Georgia. He learned in school about a time when black Americans, either legally or implicitly, endured a system of racial separation known as "Jim Crow." Barnes used to believe he could understand the cruelties endured by earlier generations, but a couple of hours with Lloyd gave him a real appreciation.

Lloyd told him of an era in which all-black teams could not stop on the road to eat or use the restroom in "white" restaurants. He described how his first true conversation with a white adult occurred when he walked into an all-white lockerroom at training camp for the Capitols. He recalled how he got past his nerves in camp because, as he explained to Barnes, "the ball knows no color."

As for Central New York, young people in this region could only benefit from the same lesson absorbed by Barnes: Sunday’s anniversary goes far beyond faded history. What Lloyd taught him, Barnes said, "is that every time I set foot on the court, it’s about something much bigger than wins or losses. What matters is whether you can help change people’s lives."